Archmage, I'm also a wizard, and Sisix asked me to give another point of view to give you some ideas in the direction you may(or may not) want to head. Everything he has said worked for him, and worked very well...all his points are valid and will easily get you through the game, so I'm really just going to throw in a few extra possibilities/ideas for you that you might decide to try depending on your play style
I'll add the #s in on which part of Sisix's post it goes with.
1) Early leveling, until about character level 20, I would suggest NOT leveling recovery at all...the skills that help with recovery hardly add any regeneration, and this allows you to focus on melee for str, magic for int and cnc, and defense for dur. Whenever you find yourself starting to run out of mana or energy, that's when you start to level recovery, and also pst/mst for larger energy/mana pools. For me, this was around level 20, but it varies based on gem usage.
5) As Sisix said, casters aren't the strongest toons early on in the game, so many want to rush to cap, or at least get to lvl 60+ as quick as possible. Your other option, is to take it slow, and overskill your colored magic skills(and also staves/suiting in particular) by 3-4(or possibly more if that next rank gem is 1-2 more lvls ahead), and still be a fairly strong character early on. Gems get better every ~5 levels almost the whole way through the game, and the next step up can often be a big help in kill speed do to the increase in damage. Personally I'd suggest slowing down around lvl 40, as the increases in damage start to pick up some. They really start to increase around lvl 65, but you can still be very strong before then. Basically depends if you want to play it slow, or rush to get strong
6-8) Heals, and healing pets are your friends...they often keep you alive, since casters get very few defensive skills. AGI and CNT play less of a roll for casters, but some of each doesn't hurt. The occasional healing gem in your primary pouch never hurts...keeps you farming and not waiting to regen health between fights. Eventually you'll get to where you can kill mobs fast enough, you can probably take these heals out.
10) One last thing to add, I would suggest you choose between a PvE or a PvP focus, if you like dueling and perhaps fighting in arena, PvP focus would be ideal. If you want a pure farmer, then PvE is the choice to make. For a caster...the differences aren't that large, but here's a few things to consider:
-PvE will have a higher recovery stat. This allows faster mana/energy(mre/pre) regeneration both during and after combat, and gives you less down time. Less down time means faster farming and more trophies to put towards skills.
-PvP will have a lower recovery stat. Duels are often over quickly, so recovery is not needed...however, when farming, this means more replenish gems in your farming pouch...which means less direct damage gems. Less damage gems means slightly slower farming, and that means less trophies, and lower skills.
-PvE doesn't need as much defense, as mobs don't hit as hard as players do. This gives more room for mel/mag/rec. The only exception is when you're at cap and boss hunting, you'll need a little more defense for that.
-PvP you take a lot more damage than mobs can dish out, so you'll want much higher dur, and also agi/cnt to help parry and prevent other casters from harming you as much as possible. This also helps against bosses, as they're much tougher than normal mobs.
Hopefully, that gives you a few options, or at least things to consider...how you build your toon depends on what type of character you want it to be.
Good luck and happy hunting!
